Thanks America Part 2

Thanks to America Part 2

American Achievements Contribute Positively to our World - 1976-Present

1976	Cray Super Computer Invented	Cray Research, Inc. introduces its first supercomputer, the Cray-1, which can perform operations at a rate of 240,000,000 calculations per second. Supercomputers designed by Seymour Cray will continue to dominate the market; the Cray 2, marketed in 1985, will be capable of 1,200,000,000 calculations per second.
July 20, 1976	Nasa's Viking I Lands on the Moon.	Viking program: The Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars. September 3 - Viking program: The Viking 2 spacecraft lands at Utopia Planitia on Mars takes the first close-up, color photos of mars.
Sept. 17, 1976	Space Shuttle Enterprise rolled out.	Space Shuttle Enterprise rolled out.
1977	Apple II computer goes on sale.	The Apple II, the first practical personal computer, goes on sale.
1979	US Brokers Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel.	March 26 - In a ceremony at the White House, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel sign a peace treaty.
1980	Ronald Reagan elected President	November 4 - U.S. presidential election, 1980: Republican challenger Ronald Reagan defeats incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter by a wide margin.
1980	Ronald Reagan becomes Time's "Man of the Year"	Reagan is TIME's Man of the Year for having risen so smoothly and gracefully to the most powerful and visible position in the world. He is also the idea of the year, his triumph being philosophical as well as personal.
1981	First Space Shuttle Flight.	For the first time, NASA successfully launches and lands its reusable spacecraft, the Space Shuttle. The shuttle can be used for a number of applications, including launch, retrieval, and repair of satellites and as a laboratory for physical experiments. While extremely successful, the shuttle program will suffer a disaster in 1986 when the shuttle Challenger explodes after takeoff, killing all on board.
1982	Vietnam Veterans Memorial Dedicated.	The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated in Washington D.C. after a march to its site by thousands of Vietnam War veterans.
1983	Personal Computer becomes widely used.	In January "Time" names its 1982 "man" of the year -- the personal computer. PC's have taken the world by storm, dramatically changing the way people communicate. IBM dominates the personal computer market, benefiting both from the production of its own machines as well as "clones" produced by other companies.
1983	Arrival of Internet Protocol.	Saturday, January 1, 1983 - the ARPANET officially changes to use the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet.
March 8, 1983	President Reagan Delivers "Evil Empire Speech"	"I urge you to beware the temptation of pride - the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil."
1883	President Reagan proposes SDI.	Wednesday, March 23, 1983 - Strategic Defense Initiative: President Ronald Reagan makes his initial proposal to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles. The media dub this plan "Star Wars."
1983	President Reagan signs bill honoring Martin Luther King.	Wednesday, November 2, 1983 - Martin Luther King Day: At the White House Rose Garden, US President Ronald Wilson Reagan signs a bill creating a federal holiday on the third Monday of every January to honor American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
1984	Apple Macintosh Computer Introduced.	January 22 - The Apple Macintosh, the first consumer computer to use a computer mouse and GUI interface, is introduced by Apple Computer corporation in a Super Bowl commercial evoking images from George Orwell's book, Nineteen Eighty-Four.
1984	President Reagan calls for Chemical Weapons ban.	April 4 - President Ronald Wilson Reagan calls for an international ban on chemical weapons.
1984	First woman to perform space walk.	Thursday, October 11, 1984 - Aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform a space walk.
1985	Genetic Engineering.	The USDA gives the go-ahead for the sale of the first genetically altered organism. The rapidly growing biotech industry will seek numerous patents, including one for a tomato that can be shipped when ripe.
1986	President Reagan meets with Mikhail Gorbachev.	Saturday, October 11, 1986 - Cold War: US President Ronald Wilson Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Reykjavík, Iceland, in an effort to continue discussions about scaling back their intermediate missile arsenals in Europe (the talks break down in failure).
1987	President Ronald Reagan tells Gorbachev to "Tear Down this Wall!" Threat of SDI forces Soviet Break-Up and eventual democratization of Russia and it's former satellites.	General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
1990	Hubble Telescope Launched.	The space shuttle Discovery deploys the Hubble Space telescope 350 miles above the Earth. Although initial flaws limit its capabilities, the Hubble will be responsible for numerous discoveries and advances in the understanding of space.
1990	Microsoft Introduces Windows 3.0.	May 22 - Windows 3.0 is released by Microsoft
1990	The Human Genome Project	The Human Genome Project (HGP) endeavoured to map the human genome down to the nucleotide (or base pair) level and to identify all the 30-35,000 genes present in it.
1991	President George H.W. Bush sends US troops to defend Kuwait, Gulf War - Operation Desert Storm begins.	President George H.W. Bush's greatest test came when Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and threatened to move into Saudi Arabia. Vowing to free Kuwait, Bush rallied the United Nations, the U. S. people, and Congress and sent 425,000 American troops. They were joined by 118,000 troops from allied nations. After weeks of air and missile bombardment, the 100-hour land battle dubbed Desert Storm routed Iraq's million-man army.
1992	US Leads Coalition to deliver aid to the former Soviet Union.	Forty-seven nations, including the United States, agreed on a massive global humanitarian effort to rescue millions of hungry people in the former Soviet Union.
1994	Top Quark Observed.	April 23 - Physicists at Fermilab observe the top quark.
1995	Galileo Spacecraft reaches Jupiter.	`The Galileo spacecraft after 6 years and 2.35 billion miles gains orbit around Jupiter. It will make at least 10 passes of the Galilean moons and act as a relay station for the Galileo probe.`
1995	US and Russia reach Nuclear arms agreement.	January 14 - President of the United States William Jefferson Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin sign the Kremlin accords which stop the preprogrammed aiming of nuclear missiles to targets and also provide for the dismantling of the nuclear arsenal in Ukraine.
1995	America Brokers Peace Plan.	Peace plan for Bosnia and Herzegovina announced (so called Vance-Owen peace plan)
1995	Dayton Peace Agreement signed, ending war in former Yugoslavia.	December 14 - The Dayton Peace Agreement signed in Paris.
1996	Mother Theresa made honorary U.S. Citizen.	November 16 - Mother Teresa receives honorary US citizenship.
1998	Researchers at the University of Wisconsin and Johns Hopkins University isolate human stem cells.	Researchers announce that they have successfully grown human stem cells in a laboratory, a major advance that could one day help in organ transplantation, gene therapy and treatment of such maladies as paralysis, diabetes and AIDS.
1999	US and NATO forces Intervene in Kosovo.	As NATO jets began to bomb Serb forces during the conflict in Kosovo, Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic unleashed a vicious campaign of "ethnic cleansing." Hundreds of thousands of people fled to neighboring Albania and Macedonia before NATO's campaign allowed them to begin returning home in May. Now the tables have been turned, and NATO forces are attempting to stop attacks on Kosovo's handful of remaining Serbs.
2000	Human Genome Project Published.	The publicly funded Human Genome Project, led by Francis Collins and the privately funded Celera effort, led by Craig Venter simultaneously publish their decoding of the human genome (in Nature and Science, respectively).
2001	President Bush's electoral college victory certified by congress.	January 6 - The United States Congress, presides over by Vice President Al Gore as President of the Senate, certifies George W. Bush's Electoral College victory and thus as the winner of 2000 presidential election.
2002	Invasion of Afghanistan and removal of Taliban begins.	October 7 - 2001 U.S. Attack on Afghanistan begins.
2002	Galileo passes Io.	October 15 - NASA's Galileo spacecraft passes within 112 miles of Jupiter's moon Io.
2002	Americans win Nobel Prize	John B. Fenn (Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, USA) "for their development of soft desorption ionisation methods for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules" Raymond Davis Jr. (Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA) "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos"
2002	Taliban forces routed.	November 12 - 2001 Attack on Afghanistan: Taliban forces abandon Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, ahead of advancing Northern Alliance troops (Northern Alliance fighters took Kabul on November 14)
2003	NASA Photographs Universe.	February 11 - NASA's WMAP takes first detailed "baby picture" of the universe. The image reveals the universe is 13.7 billion years old (within one percent error) and provides evidence that supports the inflationary theory.
2003	Terrorist mastermind captured.	March 1 - War on Terrorism: Authorities in Pakistan capture Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks along with money man Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi.
2003	War to remove Saddam Hussein from Iraq begins.	March 19 - First American bombs dropped on Baghdad, Iraq. President Saddam Hussein and his sons do not comply with President Bush's 48 hour mandate demanding their exit from Iraq. March 20 - 2003 Iraq war: Land troops from United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invade Iraq. March 22 - The United States and the United Kingdom begin their shock and awe campaign with a massive air strike on military targets in Baghdad using cruise missiles fired from US Navy warships, Royal Navy submarines and B-52 bombers; and laser guided missiles fired by Stealth Bombers.
2003	U.S. forces seize control of Baghdad.	April 9 - U.S. forces seize control of Baghdad, apparently ending the regime of Saddam Hussein.
2003	President Bush announces end of major combat Iraq.	May 1 - George W. Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, in a Lockheed S-3 Viking, where he gave a speech announcing end of major combat in the Iraq war. Clearly visible in the background was a banner stating "Mission Accomplished".
2003	Saddam Hussein Captured.	2003 Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of Tikrit.
2004	U.S. Lands craft on Mars.	January 3 - NASA's MER-A (Spirit) lands on Mars.
2004	NASA breaks Mach 7	March 27 - NASA succeeds in a second attempt to fly its X-43A experimental airplane from the Hyper-X project, attaining speeds in excess of Mach 7, the fastest free flying air-breathing hypersonic flight.
2005	Nasa discovers Fluffy Comets	Little fluffy comets: On July 4, NASA created a unique fireworks display far out in space between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists used the Deep Impact spacecraft to smash a 1,000-pound copper impactor into comet Tempel 1. The collision revealed that comets are fluffy, not hard and rocky. The mission was a masterpiece of technical coordination over a distance of nearly 270 million miles. Read
2006	Warren Buffet	The U.S.’s second richest man, Warren Buffet, announces that he will donate over $30 billion (that’s $30,000,000,000!) to the foundation started by the richest man, Bill Gates. Who says that one (really, really rich) person can’t change the world? Read more at Suite101: 2006 Year in Review: Important Events of 2006
2007	President Bush orders Iraq War Troop Surge	January 10, 2007: Bush officially announces the troop surge. “I’ve committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq.” Also in his speech, Bush defines the purpose of the surge. "Our troops will have a well-defined mission: to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs.

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